Improved underpinning- for buildings



"INc-REASE S. "HILE'oE iusfrou,` AND ANDREW BUENHA'M,

.NORTH CHELSEA, NIASSACEUSETTS.A

Lemrraam No. 89,995, ma Ma@ 11,1869.

`rxvxrnovrun UNDERPINNING Fon BUILDINGS.

The. Schedule referred /to iny these Letters Patent and making part of the same. i

To all whom 'it 'may concern.; 4

Be it known that We, INCREASE S. HILL, of Boston, and ANDREW URnHAM, of North (Jheisea, al1

in the county of, Suffolk, and State ,of Massachusetts,

have 'invented an Improved Underpinning for Buildgings;` and We do herebydeclare that'the following,

4taken in connection with the drawings which`accompany and form partof this specification, is' a description of our invention, suiicient to enable those skilled vin the art to practise it. i

For wooden buildings, especially, it is the practice to place, beneath the sill of the frame aud the rough rub`` ble, wall of the cellar, a course of ashlar, sometimes rough and sometimes dressed, and generally'called the underpinning, its purpose being to raise the woodeny `sill from the ground, `toprevent its decay.

f rlhis stone underpinning is expensive,and heavy to .handle and transport, and often can be obtained only ofdistantcuarrymen, after long and vexatious de' lays;

The object of our invention is to provideadurabl'e and cheap substitute for such underpinning, which, like builders hardware, can be `constantly kept on hand at foundries and hardware-stores, from which it l canbe ordered according to any given schedule of sizes.

Our invention consists in a new article of manufacture, the` same being an underpinning of cast-iron, having a verticaliweb,'an d upper and lowerlanges of about thewidth of lthesill, which is to rest upon the upper Bange, the pieces being made with end anges, which are pierced with holes, so that the piecescan be united by bolts. For forming theouter corners lof the underpinning, the castings are made with salient angles, and for breaks in the building, as where Wings join the main building, :the castings are made with re-entering anles. i

`The drawings illustrate an embodiment of curinventioni i Figure 1 showing a portion of our improved underpinning, in plan; i f

FigureZ exhibiting a rear elevation thereof; and- Figures 3 and 4,` cross-sections of the same. a is the front vertical web, or plate of the casting.

b, the upper, and c the lower. horizontal flanges, ex`

tending from the outerboundary of ,the building towardlits interior.

d (l are vertical flanges, cast., at the ends of each `separate piece entering into tile formation of the entire underpinning, said vertical dan ges being cast integral: with 4the pieces to which `they appertain.

Through adjacent flanges d d pass bolts g, which l unitethe parts of the underpinning together. I

AtA, in fig. 1, is shown a salient-angled piece of our underpinning, and'at B, a re-eutering-angled piece,

the angles of'such pieces being commonly right an- Y gles, though they may, of course, be made to any de `sii-ed angle.

The* sill which is to rest on the upper flange of our underpinning is denoted by e. p

Where the pieces of the underpinning are boltedl together, we prefer tointroduce into the joints sheets of soft or yielding material, such as rubber, tarred paper, 86e., as seen at f f. f

Where windows lor doors `break the, continuityA of the underpinning, the frames therepf are easily united to the underpinning by the use of Wood-screws, which are passed 'through holes made in the flanges cl, the

threads of the screws holdingin the Wood of the frames.

I f it is desired to keep the cellar Warm inwinter o1 cool in summer, the space in the underpinning, bounded bythe front plate a and the ilauges b and e, maybe lled with any good non-conductor, such as wood, for example, as seen in fig. 3; or, asl seen in fig. 4, a board maybe tted between the flanges b and c, and an air# space may be left behind the board, or the space may be filled withtan, or sawdust, or other suitable substance. Y j

To prevent rusting', the castings should be Well coated with red-lead paint, and then the outer surface of the underpinning may be painted and sanded, in imitation of stone.'

We Vclaim the systemof metal underpinning, consisting of the straight and-angular castings, arranged and connected together substantially as described.

' INCREASE S. HILL.

l ANDREW BURNHAM. Witnesses:

J. B. Onosnir,v FRANCISl GQULD. 

